Angels in the Gloom (22 page)

She took Bens arm and they turned away, still laughing.

The brown dog was ducky-diving in the pond to find his chops and Mrs. Oundle and the butcher were sizing each other up to decide who was to blame, when Ben left Hannah at her gate where Joseph was pulling weeds, one-handed, in the garden.

He spoke briefly to Ben, then followed Hannah inside to the kitchen.

“Tea?” she asked, still smiling. “Thank you for doing the weeding.” She filled the kettle under the tap.

“It’s my garden,” Joseph replied.

She froze. It was an extraordinary remark. She turned around slowly to face him. He was standing in the middle of the kitchen floor, his sleeve was rolled up, his good arm slightly scratched and stained with mud and the green sap of grasses.

“Why did you say that?” she asked. “I know perfectly well that this is your house. When the war is over, and you come back here, I shall return to Portsmouth, or wherever Archie… if he is still alive… is posted. Or are you saying that you are going to stay here, and you want it back now?”

He blushed. “No, of course I’m not. I meant it’s fair that I do something of the work to keep it up, while I’m here. And even if I do stay, it’s still your home for as long as you want it to be.”

“But you might stay?” she asked eagerly, ignoring the fact that something had obviously angered him.

“I don’t know.” His expression was deeply unhappy.

“You don’t have to decide today,” she tried to comfort him. “It will be another three or four weeks before your arm is completely better.”

“I know.” None of the misery left his face.

“Why are you so angry?” she asked. “Is it the Irish news? Do you really think there’ll be war there, too?”

“No, it’s not the Irish news,” he replied. “Hannah, that young man is falling in love with you, and don’t pretend you don’t know it. That would be unworthy of you.”

She felt the blood scald up her face. Yesterday she could have denied it, but today it was impossible. She felt intruded upon. Joseph had no right to enter that part of her life. It was not only embarrassment that burned in her but anger.

“I didn’t deny it.”“ she snapped at him. ”How dare you accuse me like that, of something I haven’t done. I said nothing to you about it because it is none of your business.“

He did not flinch, as if he had expected her to react exactly as she had. It added insult to the turmoil of feelings inside her.

“Is that as honest as you can be, Hannah?” he asked. “You are afraid something will happen to Archie, so you are allowing yourself to care for someone safe, and letting him care for you. I understand fear, and loss, but that doesn’t make it right.”

Her temper snapped. All the loneliness, tension, and fear, the sense of exclusion tumbled out of the tight repression in which she had kept it.

“No, you don’t!” she said savagely. “You don’t understand the waiting, the being shut out. You don’t understand having to pretend it doesn’t hurt all the time so you protect your children. You don’t understand being a family for a few days, and then being on your own, then having a family again, and then wondering if it’s for the last time. When it goes one way or the other, you can begin to recover from it, but this never lets you get used to anything!” She drew in a shivering breath, still glaring at him. “I hate all the changes! I don’t want women bank managers, women police, women taxi drivers, and I don’t want to be able to vote for members of Parliament. I want to do what women have always done, be a wife to my husband and a mother to my children! I hate uncertainty, anger, fighting, destroying everything we used to value.”

“I know.” His face was bleak and very pale. “I don’t like it much myself. I think a lot of people who make the best of it do so because they have no choice. You can be dragged into the future, kicking like a child, or you can walk in upright and with some dignity. That’s almost all the choice you’ve got.”

“You sound pompous, Joseph. This is just about Ben Morven being a little in love with me,” she responded. She knew Joseph despised pomposity. She ached for the warmth and the brightness of being cared for, that softness in Ben Morven’s eyes when he looked at her. It gave her hope that even if Archie were killed, there was still someone who could love her. She had put words to it at last—if Archie were killed. It was like a miniature death just to think it.

Joseph leaned back a little against the kitchen table, easing the weight from his damaged leg. “Is that how you would explain it to Tom?” he asked.

“That is horribly unfair! Tom is fourteen!” she protested. “He has no idea…” She stopped. Joseph was standing there with his eyes wide, his dark eyebrows raised a little. She felt her face burn.

“Really?” he asked with surprise.

She turned around and marched out of the kitchen, slamming the door behind her.

Jenny was standing in the hall, her face solemn. “Are you cross with Uncle Joseph?” she asked seriously. “Because he has to go back to the war again and leave us?”

Hannah was taken aback. “No. No of course not…”

“We’ll look after you, Mummy. I’ll help more. I won’t make a mess in my room. And I’ll make my bed.”

Hannah wanted to weep, and hug Jenny so hard she might even hurt her. The passion inside her was too much, but she must control herself, or she could frighten Jenny. She was a child. She would not be afraid so long as Hannah herself was not. It all depended upon her. That was the trouble, it was always the trouble, and Joseph did not understand.

“You help a lot already,” she said, making herself smile. “I was just upset because of something that happened in the village. Uncle Joseph was telling me I did the wrong thing, and I was cross with him because I don’t like to be told I’m wrong, especially when I am. And Uncle Joseph isn’t going back to the war for a long time yet, maybe not at all. He isn’t well enough.”

“Is he going to get well? Margaret’s daddy isn’t going to get well. She says he was gassed, and he’ll always be sick.”

She touched Jenny’s hair, pushing it out of her eyes automatically. It was too soft to stay in grips.

“That’s terrible. But it isn’t what happened to Uncle Joseph. He will get well, just not for a while yet. Perhaps you could help out by making him a cup of tea. Let him put the kettle on, and you get out the pot for him. I need to go out quickly, just for a little while.”

“Are you coming back?”

“Yes, of course I am! Tell Uncle Joseph I’ve gone to put it right.”

“What right?”

“He’ll know.”

It was an extraordinarily difficult thing to do because she knew she had been guilty of deceit, both of Ben and of herself. Several times she hesitated, actually stopping on the footpath, wondering if she was ridiculous to seek him out at the tearoom where she knew he would be having an early lunch, perhaps not even alone. Was she making more out of a glance than he had ever meant? Would she end up embarrassing herself even more? It would be far easier simply to let it go until the next time they happened to meet.

That would probably be at church tomorrow, and that was the last place to have the sort of conversation she needed to. How could she be brief, honest, and retain some dignity for both of them? She should leave it until the opportunity arose by itself. Which could be a week from now!

She reached the tearoom and stopped outside. The sun was winking on mullioned windows and there was a black and white cat basking on the sill inside. She could go in and buy something for Joseph, and still change her mind. A chocolate cake to have with dinner?

She pushed the door open. It was noisy, cheerful. Half a dozen couples were there already eating sandwiches and talking. She saw Ben at a table with another man, a few years older, perhaps in his middle thirties. That was the perfect excuse to avoid the whole issue. She could not possibly raise the issue in front of his friend.

She walked to the counter and smiled at Mrs. Bateman. She had known her for as long as she could remember.

“Afternoon, Miss Hannah,” she said cheerfully. “Chocolate cake, is it, for Mr. Joseph?” Without waiting for a reply she disappeared to go to the kitchen, leaving Hannah alone at the counter.

The next moment Ben was behind her. “Are you all right?” he said gently. “You look…” He could not find a tactful word.

“Flustered,” she supplied for him, meeting his eyes, then wishing she had not. The warmth was still there, all the possibilities she was willing and afraid to see. Now was the moment. “I am,” she answered. “I realized that I behaved rather badly an hour ago when poor Mrs. Oundle lost her chops.”

He grinned broadly. “So did I! I haven’t seen anything so funny in months, and I needed to laugh. Do you think we should apologize to her? Or would that only make it worse? There are some things you need to pretend didn’t happen, or at least that you didn’t see.”

“Since we doubled up and howled with laughter, I don’t think that’s going to work,” she answered. “But actually that wasn’t what I meant.”

He looked puzzled.

She hurried on before he could say something that would make it impossible for her. How on earth could she do this without sounding awkward, humorless, and incredibly arrogant? The only recourse was to be honest. She looked at him steadily, seeing in his face both the intelligence and the capacity for pain. “I’ve been behaving as if I were not married, and I am,” she said quietly. “I’m very married, and I love my husband. I just miss him a great deal when he’s away, and I’ve forgotten how to behave properly. I owe you an apology for that, and I am sorry.”

The color bleached from his skin, leaving the freckles standing out. “I see.” His voice was husky. “Yes, of course you are… married, I mean.”

She knew she had hurt him, and despised herself for it. How incredibly, contemptibly selfish. Whatever Ben felt for her, it was mild compared with the disgust she felt for herself.

Mrs. Bateman returned with the large chocolate cake. “There y’are, Miss Hannah. You tell Mr. Joseph it’s the best Oi’ve got, an‘ it’s on the house.”

“I can’t do that!” she protested. “I’ll…”

“You’ll take it,” Mrs. Bateman said with a satisfied smile. “If Mr. Joseph won’t accept it from me, then let ‘im bring it back an’ say so to me face. He’ll not do it, Oi’ll wager. Whole village thinks the world of ‘im, Miss Hannah. You tell him that. Now, Mr. Morven, what can Oi get for you, sir?”

* * *

Joseph accepted the cake. He knew Mrs. Bateman had an excellent kitchen, and it was her pleasure to give away the best now and then. It was her way of marking her respect for certain favorites. It would hurt her to have refused.

It was a warm, comfortable evening. Hannah said nothing, but he knew from the direct gaze she gave him, and the very slight, rueful smile that she had faced her problem, and dealt with it.

But later, alone in his room, he lay awake, conscious of how abrupt he had been with her, and how sure of himself when he had not even considered what might lie ahead for her. What if Archie were one of the thousands who would not come back from the sea?

She had accused him of being pompous. Was she simply lashing out with the charge she knew would hurt him most? Or was she right? Was he a hollow man, criticizing where he had not walked? How much life and love was there inside him? Was he judging a passion he had forgotten how to feel, a warmth and a hunger he had lost?

He had been so busy trying to answer other people’s needs that he had stifled his own. And without that ache of life, the vulnerability to hurt, what understanding did he have of any of it? Or of anybody who had the courage to be all they could, to be hollowed out by joy and pain into a vessel big enough to hold all of life?

Coward was a terrible word, the ugliest known to a soldier—and perhaps if they were honest, anyone at all. He was accustomed to the reality of courage in the trenches, what it cost a man to face misery daily, to see his friends blown apart and so much torn flesh they were barely recognizable as having once been men. And he had seen them do it with dignity and quiet, self-effacing humor.

What courage had he? The courage to face other people’s wounds, but not to risk sustaining them himself?

No, that was unfair. He was hurt by their pain. He realized with shock just how much he dreaded going back to Flanders. For over a week now he had avoided even thinking about it. His mind had been filled with the need for him here, among his own people, in the village where he was born, and the incumbent priest was useless. He fell asleep still troubled, not liking himself much.

On Saturday Joseph was invited to dinner with Shanley and Orla Corcoran. Hannah had been invited also, but more as a courtesy than with the belief that she would come. She had a previous commitment to take the children to a party in the village.

“I have no way to get to you,” Joseph protested.

“Lizzie Blaine will come for you,” Corcoran replied. “She has a friend to visit a mile or so away from us, and will be happy to do it.”

So Joseph accepted. He wrapped the pewter goblet carefully, making it as tidy and elegant as he could, and took it with him. He was excited at the thought of Corcoran’s pleasure when he saw it.

Lizzie arrived at exactly the time she had said, and he got into the car. It was a utilitarian Model T Ford that reminded him sharply of the one Judith had driven with such reckless pleasure before the war. He mentioned it to her as they set off.